Weapons Meet WMD Criteria

The argument goes on over here about whether President Bush lied, or did not lie about WMD's in Iraq.
As the argument goes on, our brave men and women continue to find those very same weapons, in Iraq.
Are they old, are they new? It would seem the soldiers actually fighting the war think they are significant.



The Advisor is published by, for and about our soldiers in Iraq. It contains some positive news not usually found in the mainstream media.
This was the headliner for July, following this are some wonderful stories about a lot of responsibilities being passed to the Iraq Security Forces.

Related News Links:
www.military.com
sistertoldjah.com

[edit on 6-7-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

[edit on 7/7/2006 by Mirthful Me]

but semper...are 500 rusty canisters of decayed nerve gas really what we went to war over? I mean really...is that worth thousands of lives? If it was 500 canisters of fresh potent gas that might be one thing....but this?

perhaps they should do something about the people that sold those deadly chemical weapons to the iraqis in the first place. what sort of people are they that they knowingly sold and financially benefited from the selling of such evil weapons to such an evil dictator in the 1st place?

oh yeah - they were uk & us people.

The WMD threat was supposed to be active programs, ready weapons and a clear and present threat to the american people.

Remember those satelite images of a bunch of trucks that were supposed to be active and moveable biological and chemical weapons labs?

500 canisters of decaying damaged canisters or shells from the pre gulf war era, even if they weren't decaying or damaged and in prestine condition, are not the threat this war was started on.

This is all propaganda to make the american people believe that the administration was right about Iraq, propaganda devised at a point in time where the presidents aproval ratings are at an all time low.

Problem I see here is that YES, 90% of the baahbaah US people will believe all this bullocks and say "yeah, see the administration didn't lie and cheat to go to Iraq" instead of seeing this as the propaganda against the american people it is.

If I'm not mistaking, propaganda used on the US people by its own goverment is something forbidden by law in the US. Making this one out of the 1000's of things that have been done over the last 6 years by this administration that are illegal, despicable and outragious which are also a disgrace of the title of president and goverment for the United States and its people.



[edit on 7/7/06 by thematrix]

Originally posted by justyc
perhaps they should do something about the people that sold those deadly chemical weapons to the iraqis in the first place. what sort of people are they that they knowingly sold and financially benefited from the selling of such evil weapons to such an evil dictator in the 1st place?

oh yeah - they were uk & us people.

I just love it how some people always want to claim that "is all the fault of the U.S. and the U.K.", and if they can they'll throw in Israel as well....

It is true that the United States was not without fault about Iraq's wmd program, but the United States nor the U.K. were the main providers of wmd to Iraq. In fact, and just to prove how wrong those people that always make false claims, just for spite against the United States, I will post some facts about the providers of wmd to Iraq.

The main providers of wmd to Iraq before the first Gulf War was...

Our organization did a study of Saddam's pre-Gulf War suppliers a few year back. We discovered that Germany garnered fully half the total sales. In fact, just before the Gulf War, Germany was selling complete, ready-to-operate poison gas plants to Iraq and Libya at the same time. The rest of the world divided the remaining half of Iraq's purchases. The Swiss, who have an unreasonably good reputation in the world, placed second in the sweepstakes with about 8% of sales (specialized presses, milling machines, grinding machines and electrical discharge machines found at nuclear weapon sites; procurement of missile parts and supervision of missile plant construction; equipment for processing uranium to nuclear weapon grade). In third place, with 4% each, Italy and France scored a tie.

Now let's read some interesting information about some of the main pre Gulf War suppliers of wmd to Iraq.

Will our troops find caches of poison gas, or even be hit by it on the battlefield? If so, German and French companies will be mainly to blame. In the 1980's, the German firm Karl Kolb and the French firm Protec combined to furnish millions of dollars' worth of sensitive equipment to six separate plants for making mustard gas and nerve agents, with a capacity of hundreds of tons of nerve agent per year. These companies had to know what the specialized glass-lined vessels they peddled were to be used for. It is insufferable that, like Pontius Pilate, Germany and France now wash their hands of the whole affair, and even chastise others for cleaning up the mess their companies helped create.

And how would the poison gas be carried? A gas doesn't stream through the ether by itself to reach a target. A specially prepared munition has to deliver it. Iraq admits that in the 1980's it bought more than 3,000 chemical-ready aerial bombs from Spain, more than 8,000 chemical-ready artillery shells from Italy and Spain, and more than 12,000 chemical-ready rocket warheads from Italy and Egypt. Most of these munitions remain unaccounted for. If our troops take casualties from a gas attack, they will have been inflicted by an international consortium of reckless suppliers.

All of the above excerpted from.
www.iraqwatch.org...

What were the chemicals used to kill Kurds in the north of Iraq?.... ^^^^^ Read above and blame the real people who made it possible... France and Germany....alongside with Spain, Italy and Egypt...

Now, to be fair I have said the United States is not without fault, although the U.
S. was not one of the main suppliers before the first gulf war nor after it, you can blame Japan, Russia which had many illicit deals with the regime of Saddam which was never mentioned according to high ranking ex-Russian military, and China, for being the main suppliers of wmd to Iraq after the first gulf war, among others which also included, once again...., Germany and France....

The countries that were owed the most money by Saddam, and not because they were selling candy, or honey and milk.

Which countries are owed the most money by Iraq?
Iraq's Gulf state neighbors are owed the most, at $30 billion. Japan is next at $9 billion, Russia at $8 billion, France at $8 billion, and Germany at $4 billion.

www.cfr.org...



These are some of the things the U.S. did sell to Iraq.

And anthrax? Botulinum? Most of the strains to make these deadly agents came from an outfit in Maryland - the American Type Culture Collection. France's Pasteur Institute also sold some.
.............
In 1988, the Unisys Corporation sold Saddam a giant, $8.7 million dollar computer system configured as a "personnel database" - in other words, set up to track Iraqi citizens. Unisys sold it directly to Saddam's Ministry of the Interior, home to his secret police. Unisys also sold high-speed computers to the Ministry of Defense and to the Saddam State Establishment, that cranked out components for missiles and nuclear weapons. Our electronics went to every known nuclear and missile site in Iraq. These included the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission, Iraqi sites that made A-bomb fuel and nuclear weapon detonators, as well as Iraq's main missile research complex. Companies like Tektronix (high-speed diagnostic equipment), Perkin-Elmer (computers and instruments for quality control), Finnigan MAT (computers useful for monitoring uranium enrichment), and the U.S. subsidiary of Siemens (instruments for analyzing powders useful for A-bomb and missile manufacture) had sales recorded in government export logs.

The following is what the Russians and the U.K sold to Iraq before the first gulf war.

There are also some Scud-type missiles to worry about that were left over from the first Gulf War. Saddam may fire some at Tel Aviv (as in 1991) to goad Israel into the fighting. Our friends the Russians sold Iraq 819 of these missiles, but the Iraqis soon discovered they didn't fly far enough. Their range had to be increased to reach Tel Aviv, where they flattened buildings in the first Gulf War, and to bombard Saudi Arabia, where they killed 28 American soldiers sleeping in their barracks. The Germans were only too happy to provide what was needed to make the missiles more lethal. From the German firm Thyssen came 35 turbopumps to enhance their rocket engines; from the firms BP, Carl Zeiss, Degussa and Tesa came training in wind tunnels and missile electronics; and from the electronics giant Siemens came switching devices and electrical systems to control missile fuel production. Not to be left out, Britain's Matrix Churchill Ltd. (in which the Iraqis had a controlling interest) supplied sensitive machine tools, Britain's TMG Engineering served as a front company for missile procurement, and U.S. defense contractor Litton Industries bankrolled the German firm that built Iraq's main missile production complex.

www.iraqwatch.org...

But again, the U.S. nor Britain were never the main providers, or even the highest providers of wmd to Iraq.

[edit on 7-7-2006 by Muaddib]

Originally posted by thematrix
The WMD threat was supposed to be active programs, ready weapons and a clear and present threat to the american people.

Well, perhaps you should read about the things found in Iraq, and including the scuds and banned missiles they fired at the coalition at the beginning of the war... Or how about the empty chemical warheads some of which were still in boxes, or how about the essential centrifuge parts for uranium enrichment which Iraqi scientists were not told to dispose of even after 10 years passed for some reason... What about the banned missile parts also found in scrapyards around the world, they were found because there were high radiation reading coming from those sites, and they were discovered by the international community to have belonged to Iraq up to the start of the war...

Originally posted by thematrix
Remember those satelite images of a bunch of trucks that were supposed to be active and moveable biological and chemical weapons labs?

Keyword moveable... some people want to claim the U.S. was always in control of every part of Iraq and in 5 minutes the U.S. could send coalition forces to find the trucks which were tracked to have moved into Syria. But of course, they don't mention that it takes a lot longer than 5 minutes to actually find where the trucks are, where they are moving and when to strike... Unless there is some human intelligence that directly gives visual intelligence, or a rumour as to where and when something is going to happen, it takes a lot more than 5 minutes to get the intel, analyze it, tell the chain of command and then send troops to investigate the site....

Then there is the known fact that Russian ex military, who still had connections with the Russian government and are now living and enjoying their hard work in Russia, were given medals by the regime of Saddam for their help up to the beginning of the war in Iraq... Then you have the statements from ex Russian military defectors who say that Russia had a plan for deep sixing wmd from third world countries like Iraq, coded name "sarindar" in Romanian. not to mention the statements from scientists and military officers from Iraq including the second in command of the air force in Iraq saying Saddam did have a wmd program active, as well as the statements from at least a Syrian journalist and some other people.

But of course, to some people all of the above is all a lie. A way to deny the truth
is what I call it..

Originally posted by thematrix
500 canisters of decaying damaged canisters or shells from the pre gulf war era, even if they weren't decaying or damaged and in prestine condition, are not the threat this war was started on.

Tons of documents dealing with wmd and how to start them again, which they were not supposed to have, empty chemical warheads and banned missiles and banned missile parts among other things which were also found there should give you a hint of what was going on in Iraq.

[edit on 7-7-2006 by Muaddib]

Did anyone except you Muaddib read the entire article?

This was obviously a find, and a dangerous one according to the people actually OVER there and not here postulating on something they know nothing about.

If a Military Officer says it's dangerous, it's dangerous. If they say it's WMD's. it's WMD's.

Who am I to question their findings?

And again, this is from the Advisor, a paper about and for the Military, not the NY times.

Semper

Originally posted by thematrix
If I'm not mistaking, propaganda used on the US people by its own goverment is something forbidden by law in the US..

I would really be interested in which law(s) you are citing.

Muaddib, thanks for the very interesting and telling background on the supply and sale of WMD's to Iraq.

Originally posted by jsobecky
I would really be interested in which law(s) you are citing.

Muaddib, thanks for the very interesting and telling background on the supply and sale of WMD's to Iraq.

I can't believe this, I am agreeing with you! *writing this done in diary!*

I don't believe that there is really any law against this being done. Is it unethical? Yes I think so. Should there be a law? Well, I may bring that up as a thread in PTS.

I don't think that the gasses themselves meet the criteria for going to war with another country. Do I believe that Sadam was tinkering around with a few booby traps? Absolutely, he would have been stupid not to in some respects! You know a country is going after you, you should go ahead and start building your defense stockpiles up.

What bothers me most out of all of this, is the constant maneuvering of wordage and the ups and downs that have been going on throughout the WMD's. Americans have been tricked at times, dealt with honestly at times, and sometimes I think things have just been done without ever telling us. I do feel that there is still something terribly wrong with all of this. It is all just to wishy washy. One day I can see something about how there are no WMD's, the next month, uh oh! They found weapons!

Do you see what I'm getting at? We have a better chance of catching the inconsistencies because we are a team working on this together, and quite a large team at that! The average joe that only catches a few news clips a day and does nothing more can easily be played around with if he is running solo. I just think this is all being used to divide us more.

I'm still amazed that we agreed on something Jsobecky!

Niteboy, its "wishy washy" because the mainstream has this false picture of what WMD’s are, its suppose to be this nuclear warhead with a Made in Iraq tag, and anything less sensational and spectacular wont do. In reality any NBC weapon is a WMD, and apparently 500 shells are not enough, even though they could kill thousands if not more. Some of these weapons were discovered in 03 and more are currently being discovered yet they get underreported.

[edit on 8-7-2006 by WestPoint23]

Interesting article on WMD's and sterling research results from Muaddib. Nice work guys.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Niteboy, its "wishy washy" because the mainstream has this false picture of what WMD’s are, its suppose to be this nuclear warhead with a Made in Iraq tag, and anything less sensational and spectacular wont do.

Que? It's the Bush administration who made that picture of WMDs. The Bush administration made an image of an Iraqi dictator ready to deploy thousands of tons of chemical and biological weapons and ready to start the same with nuclear weapons.

Honestly, if it takes some kind of long inquiry to verify that something is in fact a WMD, it probably wasn't dangerous enough to justify all the action that has taken place. There should have been some kind of sensational or spectacular finding of WMDs to justify the war. Look at all the costs of the conflict, and you are saying that finding a pile of decaying weapons was worth it?

Originally posted by Jamuhn
There should have been some kind of sensational or spectacular finding of WMDs to justify the war. Look at all the costs of the conflict, and you are saying that finding a pile of decaying weapons was worth it?

Exactly, if these were the WMDs that Bush and co. went to war over do you think they'd allow Rick Santorum to hold the press conference and take all the credit for finding them? If these so called WMDs were enough to justify the Iraq war this story would be all over the MSM, ESPECIALLY Faux News.

The reason we're not seeing much coverage of this story is because it's a mistake to try and say these were the WMDs we invaded a sovereign country over and to make that claim would be an embarrassment to this administration.

Or perhaps :

They are just doing their jobs, going about conducting a war, removing the Weapons of Mass Destruction, freeing a nation, building schools, starting a police and security force; and could care less about the "perceived" notion of embarrassment.

Perhaps they are too busy fighting over there so we wont be dieing over here, to care if 1 weapon or 500 is enough for you.

Man! What does it take for some people to get it.

Semper

Some of you people must be really bugging out if you think you can use this pitiful stuff to equate what not only Bush constanty reiterated, but Cheney, Ms. Rice and Rumsfeld said specifically and practically in unison at times, that Iraqi Nuke weapons would strike our shores. Not Chemical shells that were meant for local BS and are older then my grandmothers shoes. We went there because he was supposedly a threat to the United States of America, not because he was a threat to his own people.



Pie

NO,
Wrong,
Read a speech or two.

We went there specifically because of 12 years of the violation of the United Nation's sanctions and Saddam's ongoing crimes against humanity. Remember the MILLIONS he killed, with the WMD's, hmmm?

As clearly stated in several speeches.

Yet, as the talking points are all about WMD's because there is nothing else to blame anyone on, I guess now it has to be a "nuke" to satisfy you all?

If they found a nuke, all you would say is, "Well it's not the doomday weapon, so Bush lied, cause that's what he meant."

Semper

Originally posted by semperfortis
Did anyone except you Muaddib read the entire article?

I saw it, but i was responding to some of claims made by some of the posters. Yeah, i know it is a bad habit, but those facts i mentioned show that from the beginning Saddam was working hard in acquiring wmd, and the U.S. was never one of the main suppliers of wmd to Iraq as some claim.

Originally posted by semperfortis
This was obviously a find, and a dangerous one according to the people actually OVER there and not here postulating on something they know nothing about.

If a Military Officer says it's dangerous, it's dangerous. If they say it's WMD's. it's WMD's.

Yes it is a find, and one which shows that Saddam did not get rid of the wmd, even the old stockpiles, as he was supposed to do.

Originally posted by semperfortis
Who am I to question their findings?

And again, this is from the Advisor, a paper about and for the Military, not the NY times.

Semper

We can always ask questions, there is nothing wrong with questioning any find. People talk about a "divide" among the American people, and the rest of the world, yes, there is a divide, and some of us can see that nomatter what evidence is found there will always be that divide because some people just don't want to accept the facts, they just want to follow the party line.

[edit on 8-7-2006 by Muaddib]

Originally posted by niteboy82
I can't believe this, I am agreeing with you!

*writing this done in diary!*

I don't believe that there is really any law against this being done. Is it unethical? Yes I think so. Should there be a law? Well, I may bring that up as a thread in PTS.

I hope you do bring it up as a topic. That would be a most interesting thread.

But, propaganda can be very useful. For example, anti-smoking campaigns. Is that propaganda? I think so, but it serves a good purpose.

Do you see what I'm getting at? We have a better chance of catching the inconsistencies because we are a team working on this together, and quite a large team at that! The average joe that only catches a few news clips a day and does nothing more can easily be played around with if he is running solo. I just think this is all being used to divide us more.

Yes I do see what you're getting at. But you want to catch the inconsistincies, and I want to catch the bad guys. And both of us want what the other wants. We have to work together; you do your job, and I'll do mine.

I'm still amazed that we agreed on something Jsobecky!

Life is full of surprises. But in the end, we both want the same thing, no?

“These are chemical weapons as defined under the Chemical Weapons Convention,
and yes ... they do constitute weapons of mass destruction,” U.S. Army Col. John Chu told the House Armed Services Committee.

Somebody needs to explain this to me.

What are the requirements for a weapon to qualify as a wmd? Who defined the requirements? Who maintains the list of weapons considered wmds? Where do they keep this list? Is their a website with the wmd list?

I suspect no standard exists for defining what is a wmd and what is not a wmd. Wmd is nothing more than a euphemism for bad ass weapons, not a class of weapon. This reduces the discussion to a meaningless debate of "Is one..." versus "Is not...".

Originally posted by df1
What are the requirements for a weapon to qualify as a wmd? Who defined the requirements? Who maintains the list of weapons considered wmds? Where do they keep this list? Is their a website with the wmd list?

A WMD can be as big as your car, or as small as a hand-held canister that you can carry onto a subway. I think that the intent is what is important.